According to early estimates at Boxofficemojo, moviegoers were in the mood for a bloody slasher. Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Prom Night came in at number one over the weekend at the domestic multiplex marketplace, with approximately $22.7 million in ticket grosses. Horror is back, baby, after the ruinous performance of Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) The Ruins. That film plunged to eighth place, and it has only taken in about $13 million so far after two full weekends on the silver screen -- as can be seen, the teen/college crowd responded much better to the slick marketing campaign behind Prom Night than it did to the one offered up in support of Viacom's project.

Street Kings from News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) couldn't even come close to Prom Night, as it only did about $12 million -- that was good enough for second place, though. Sony's 21 dropped to third place after two weekends at top, its total gross now standing at around $62 million. News Corp.'s Nim's Island was fourth, and George Clooney's Leatherheads, from General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal asset, is right now in fifth place with $6.2 million. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, the number-six film, was credited with a similar amount, so it might end up changing places with Clooney's unfortunate not-blockbuster.

Sony had a pretty good weekend between Prom Night and 21. I can see how the younger crowds reacted in a positive manner to the horror piece -- we are pretty much in the season, after all, when high-school kids across the land are preparing for the popular cultural rite. Plus, there is some significant brand equity to the title -- Jamie Lee Curtis starred in the classic 1980 film with the same name (to the best of my knowledge, this is not a remake of that cinematic icon). Sony's challenge now is to keep the momentum going and get this thing as close to $100 million as possible -- I don't think the century mark is 100% doable in this case, but approaching it will ensure that a new franchise is born. Who knows, maybe we'll see a Prom Night video game on the PlayStation 3.

Disclosure: I own shares of General Electric; positions can change at any time.